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This is Suburbia

Part 2 Project 2005Luke CooperRyan McCruddenTom WaddicorUniversity of Liverpool Liverpool UKSo far, suburbia has been an unexplored area during our architectural education, despite the fact that most of our lives have been spent in it. We have used the thesis as an opportunity to debate suburbia from many standpoints, challenging our preconceptions of the city and architecture as a whole. We now accept suburbia as an integral part of the city. Our work this year suggests to us that the suburbs are capable of driving an architectural project to the same extent as any urban site. We believe it has potential and undeniable significance.Luke CooperRyan McCruddenTom Waddicor

Coming from suburban homes they became fascinated by Queens Drive, Liverpool’s ring road completed in the 1920s. Approaching the design with a degree of subtle irony they sought sites which allowed them to explore their own feelings about the suburbs of their youth and the characteristic forms which arterial roads have generated. They settled on three functions, a church, a parking garage and a superstore which they then located on sites such that each building could be seen from Queens Drive while driving. Each building was then drawn in a caricatured fashion. The shadow of Venturi hangs overall.

2005

So far, suburbia has been an unexplored area during our architectural education, despite the fact that most of our lives have been spent in it. We have used the thesis as an opportunity for us to debate suburbia from many standpoints.

Queens Drive is the common thread linking our three sites. It was envisaged at the beginning of the twentieth century by City Engineer John Brodie and served as an insightful speculation of the growth of the city.

We broke Queens Drive in to three sections. Junctions, Boulevard Conditions and Frontage Rules.
This extract from Boulevard Conditions shows 5 of the 13 different lampost types in the eight mile stretch of Queens Drive.

During this thesis we have outlined three recent urban conditions, generic to suburbia. These are a result of new typologies of both building and infrastructure, which have been inserted into a fabric largely planned in the first half of the 20th century

Clubmoor is an area of new developments on the north section of Queens Drive. It has become the epitomy of life with a car and the rejection of the pedestrian

We have designed a masterplan for this site, addressing the growth of the suburban centre. The scheme proposes a rationalisation of existing underused green space on the site to create a pedestrian link. Asda is the anchor for the regeneration

A five minute radius for a car and pedestrian revealed the need to treat the basket and trolley shopper as equal.

The glossy high colour renders for this project form part of the larger critique of architectural graphic styles running through the thesis. This image was intended to evoke the same reaction of a public consultation for an urban masterplanning project.

The formation of a 'basket' entrance to Asda in the middle of a cul-de-sac marries the apparent domestic entrance prevalent in supermarket architecture with the fabric it mimics.

Sandfield Park is the oldest section of Queens Drive, formed from existing nineteenth century roads. There is an interesting disparity of housing types in this area: Terrace Vs Cul-de-sac

We have replaced the once sacraficial band of 1930s terraces with a colonade and linear park that questions what a walled estate can be, using the space either side for garages and shops

The design for this Roman Catholic church combines a simple progression of form from cul-de-sac to church to clock tower. The church serves to bring the community focus of this collection of cul-de-sacs to the front of Queens Drive, something which works

Situated in East Liverpool, the Rocket is a triangular site, bound by the M62 motorway to the north, Queens Drive to the west and a residential street to the south. The Liverpool-Manchester railway line dissects the site, sunk in a deep cutting.

Our proposal for this site is a multi-storey park and ride relating directly to the city scale of the flyover. It connects physically to the city centre via a new station on the Liverpool-Manchester train line.

The megastructure is then contrasted with a two storey neighbourhood centre aimed at stepping up to the scale of the city programatically in order to fulfill its role in the entry to Liverpool